March 01, 2007
Contact!
U.S.S Mariner talks about pitching to contact:
As with most of these things, there's really no good answer for me to throw out to this. You can certainly see that it could be more pitch-efficient and get starters deeper into a game. But you can also see that it depends on the pitcher, what they're throwing, and how their command is.
For instance:
Great pitches, great command: you shouldn't care about pitching advice
Great pitches, horrible command: chuck it down the middle, let them swing and miss
Hittable pitches, great command: you want to live on speed changes and hitting the corners. Do not pitch to contact.
Horrible pitches, horrible command: you're not going to be around long anyway.
You might say it comes down to when you fool the batter. Fool him late and he swings and misses or takes a pitch he shouldn't. Fool him early, and he tops the ball and grounds out, or gets under it and pops up. Maddux was the master of both, which is why he was 10th in the 1990s in pitches thrown despite tossing 160 more innings than any other pitcher that decade.
In the end, however, efficiency is about outs. It's tough to throw a lot of pitches if you are retiring the side 1-2-3 often.
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Posted by David Pinto at
08:53 AM
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That is Roy Halladay's explination for his drop in strikeouts. He is pitching to contact and going for quick outs.